“Nothing’s going on,” I assured her, carrying her back into her bedroom. “We’re just going to go sleep at my place, have a fun sleepover, okay? But first, you’re going to keep sleeping and we’ll wake you up when it’s time to go.”
“Can all my friends come?” Fern asked as I settled her back into bed, indicating her many, many stuffed animals.
“Of course they can.” It would take a few extra minutes but there had to be a laundry basket or something we could shove all her stuffed animals into to take them with us.
I tucked her in, and then went back out to the living room, my ears straining to see if I could catch any sound that would tell me the guy was still out there. I couldn’t hear anything. Maggie noticed my expression and mouthed he’s gone as she nodded along with the dispatcher on the phone. “Yes, we’re safe, we’ve barricaded the door. Uh-huh. Thank you.”
Not wanting to impose but also wanting to help calm Maggie’s nerves, I went into the kitchen and began preparing a pot of tea. It was something I’d noticed about Maggie that she inherited from Mark. They were both big tea drinkers, as opposed to Violet and myself who were coffee addicts.
Maggie shot me a grateful smile when she noticed what I was doing. Her hands were still trembling slightly, even when she finally finished up with the dispatcher and got off the phone. “The police will be here in about five minutes,” she explained. “She offered to stay on the line with me but I said it was fine. I… I have you. And I don’t think he’s coming back.”
“Who is he?” I asked, setting her cup of tea down in front of her. Oh, what the hell. I might as well have a cup too.
“He’s my neighbor,” Maggie said, confirming my suspicions. “The one I told you about at dinner.”
“You said he was a little too friendly sometimes.”
“Yes. I… I didn’t realize how much.” She took a few deep breaths. “He’s been trying to ask me out for months now, and I worried that I should get more firm with him, but I didn’t want to be hurtful. I figured that if I kept turning him down he would get the hint and it would all be fine. But he didn’t, and when he found out about you… he just lost it. Went berserk. It was terrifying.”
She looked up at me, her hazel eyes large and still scared, and I reached out to gently flatten her fingers around the warm mug of tea, holding hem and keeping them warm. “I was going to ask you this tomorrow,” I said, “and see if… if you didn’t think it was too fast. But do you want to move in with me? The furniture’s leftover from the previous owner, so we can sell it, all of it if you want, get new stuff… I finished the mural for Fern’s room and I haven’t started on the things I want to do for our room and some of the others, art I want to put up, but… you shouldn’t stay here.”
Maggie shook her head and for a moment I was nervous that she was disagreeing with me, but then she spoke and I realized that she was shaking her head at the idea of staying here any longer. “I agree. I shouldn’t… I don’t want him to know where I am. Even if I do plan to slap him with a restraining order.”
I grinned at her. “That’s my girl.”
The cops arrived a few minutes later. While we waited for them, I just wrapped an arm around Maggie, keeping her close, keeping her warm. She debated going into her room to change but she didn’t know how much she should keep things the same, and so she just wore the lingerie and my jacket to cover herself as she explained the situation to them—how she had dressed up for me, her boyfriend, and how Leo (that was the bastard’s name, apparently) had taken advantage of that and nearly done worse damage than he actually had.
It wasn’t a fun process, giving our statements to the police, but there was the silver lining of hearing Maggie call me her boyfriend for the first time. The only thing that could’ve been better would’ve been hearing her say ‘my husband’ but I reminded myself to be patient. There was making up for lost time and then there was rushing into things, and the last thing I wanted to do was overwhelm Maggie—especially after what had happened tonight.
The cops advised Maggie on how to go about pressing charges if she wanted, and how to contact someone to get a restraining order. Maggie nodded through all of it, taking the business cards they gave her, her lips pressed together with nerves but a determined look in her eye. I might have been the one to punch Leo, but I had no doubt that my beating was going to look like child’s play by the time Maggie was through legally destroying this asshole.